PAN'TA RHEI

Another new band, this time from Belgium. At first I ddin´t know what to think of their sound. For several days Pan´ta Rhei was practiclly the only CD I heard. And although it was clear from the very star that those guys were very good, the songs were strong and the musicanship of all involved awesome, something was not right. After about a week I finally found out what was that: the CD is too long (over 75 minutes) and the track order was all wrong.

Let me explain: Ghiribizzi has all the right influences and most of the time the tunes are great. There are many memorable parts on the record, but the material is rather heterogeneous. Some parts simply don´t mix well with the others. Take for exemple the opener Asian Love. It is a slow song that is too long (14 minutes) to grab the atention of the listener. The second track Break Down Soon is much more representative of their sound and, being 5 minutes long, an excellent start for the album. And that goes on for the rest of the CD. Individually they are all quite good. Together as they are, they are obstrusive between each other. It´s a hard disc to listen in full in just one sitting.

Which is a pity since their music is very interesting, creative, well arranged and very well performed. Melodic and accessible, and still very elaborate and full of surprises. They are hard to label, since they sound like no other. Frank Centauri has a very unique voice that takes some use to, but he is good. As expected, the musicians are excellent and their mix of dozens of musical styles works most of the time.

In the end I found this CD to be very good, specially if you hear the tracks individually. I guess this is an easy problem to fix and I´m willing to hear this album´s follow up. Very promising. Final rating: 3.5 stars.